


Distance

by Rulerofyouall



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, Autism, Autism Spectrum, Confusion, Delusions, Depression, Emotional Hurt, M/M, Mental Health Issues, References to Depression, Self-Esteem Issues, and it has recently been unburied from the pit of despair, hopefully everyone is in character this was written a long ass while ago, so is editor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:00:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24379120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rulerofyouall/pseuds/Rulerofyouall
Summary: Troy has left to sail around the world. Abed does not go with him and struggles to cope in his absence.
Relationships: Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36





	Distance

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing!  
> It's been a long as while since anything has been posted on this account. My editor had the crappiest graduation (it was literally a drive thru like wtf after 13 years k-12 that's the best they could do for him??? bruh), and we both went through depressive spells. We are trying to get out of it though by posting random shit that we wrote like years ago or something (who knows anymore).

Abed loved Troy.

It had took him a while to come to that conclusion; after all, he was way out of his depth in emotional conversations. He had been learning more cues throughout the years with his study group, but he had always had Troy. He was more at ease when he was around. He could handle more stimulus around him. All and all, Troy felt...warm, and it was not because of all the blankets and pillows they usually had lying around. Of course, he did not know for certain if that is in fact "love," but he supposed he would never know. He could ask, but the response would likely confuse him.

For now, he would have to function under that understanding. Abed loved Troy.

But did Troy love Abed?

No, no he didn't. It was not difficult to come to that conclusion. Troy was straight; he had never even mentioned being remotely bi-curious to Abed before. He had had girlfriends in the past. He had never shown any interest in Abed beyond a strong platonic friendship, and Abed could deal with that.

But Troy left him. He went sailing across the world for his inheritance from Pierce. Would he have done that if Abed was really his friend? What did Abed do to make him leave? He didn't have a new family or anything, just wonder for future possibilities. His mom had stopped coming over on December 9 every year due to her new family, but that was not Troy's case. He could be reenacting some sort of quest he had always wanted to play out, but couldn't that have been done in the dreamatorium? Or was that not "real" enough for him? Troy always shared those adventures with Abed, and now, he had left him alone. Was he even his friend?

Well, he wasn't really alone. Annie still lived with him. The rest of the group was still with him. They still met and studied even in Troy's absence. Abed had noticed that they didn't speak much about Troy, at least not in his presence. Were they avoiding the subject to prevent setting him off? He missed Troy. He wished he was still around, but he did not like how people were ignoring his existence. Just because he wasn't there at that moment didn't mean he was gone forever, right? Eventually, Troy would return to them, return to Greendale, and everything would go back to normal, right? They would take more classes together, study together, and roleplay together still, right?

He hated change. He had always had certain idiosyncrasies, certain hyperfixations that Troy had picked up on throughout the years. No one had the same amount of patience with him as Troy, not even his parents. Even the study group would get frustrated with him if he said something insensitive or just didn't understand something he should have, but Troy got him. Troy had even saved him sometimes, one of those occurrences being during the Inspector Spacetime convention. He had shared things with Troy that he had never shared with anyone else ever. They had bunk beds. They did everything together.

Everything but sailing across the world, Abed supposed. He wouldn't have wanted to go anyway. He was satisfied at Greendale but only so if Troy was with him. Since Troy left, nothing quite felt right. It was colder, harsher. Less people understood his inside jokes; there was no one to do their special handshake with. While at sea, Troy didn't even have access to his phone. He could be thinking anything right then, and he wouldn't be able to contact Abed even if he wanted to.

Abed tried to convince himself it was nothing. Maybe he was just trying out some long-distance trope to make their friendship even stronger.

But Troy and Abed could always figure out when one of them were roleplaying.

He suspected the their group were walking on eggshells around him. He didn't blame them. Almost everyone he met thought that he was weird and sometimes unpredictable. If they were afraid that he would snap and try something, then, they were, and he couldn't change that. After all, he had in the past admitted that he had planned to cut Jeff's arm off (but that wasn't Abed; it was Evil Abed--there was a difference).

He didn't quite feel whole anymore. He rarely knew how to explain his feelings, but he supposed he would try his best. There was a part of him that was missing, a part of him that sailed away with Troy. There were long silences now in his life, silences that normally would have been filled with Troy's chatter, jokes, and everything. His skin prickled. Troy was usually the only one who could get away with touching him every now and then, and now that he was gone, he had picked up on its absence. He had tried to remedy it by reaching out to other people like Annie or Britta or Jeff or Shirley, but it didn't feel the same. He knew it wasn't the same. It wasn't right. He was trying to fix his longing for a single man by reaching himself out to many people at once (he saw similarities in him now with someone Shirley would describe as a "slut"). He stopped touching them after that, but his skin still burned with a desire for contact. Abed brought out a weighted blanket, one that he normally used when things were difficult for him, but it was leagues different from Troy.

Abed had grown used to sleeping in the same room as Troy. Without him, his sleep suffered. If the rest of the group noticed the growing bruise-like patches beneath his eyes, they said nothing. Every now and then, they did throw looks at him, making him think that perhaps they did know that NOTHING WAS ALL RIGHT ANYMORE. They never voiced their concerns though.

He had been through change before: his parents' divorce, coming to Greendale, joining the study group, but he doubted he could adjust his routine to exclude Troy. He loved Troy. For the longest time, he didn't know what love meant nor what it felt like, but he thought that he knew it now. As many movies and shows say, someone never really knows what they have until it's gone. Up until their very last moment together, Abed considered Troy to be his very best friend, but now, Abed wished that they had more. He wished for more time, more understanding (on his part), more _everything._ Then again, it might not have lasted. It might have ruined their friendship. Abed knew better than most that some people who think they truly love each other and get married end up divorced in the end anyway. How could he hope for anything different with Troy? It was one-sided at best.

His eating habit also became more unhealthy. He just...stopped eating normally. Sometimes, he would forget. Sometimes, he wouldn't, but he would keep the hunger pains if only to feel something he could understand, to try to fill the large hole that had been ripped in him. His study group probably noticed that new development as well. While they were eating, he would normally stare off into space. While he would sometimes dissociate and spend time in his dreams or his "happy place," he had not done so quite as often as he was now. Every moment he could, he would slip out of reality just so he didn't have to feel or think about what was actually going on. If he could get time to pass without being consciously aware of it, that was a win. The longer he was out, the closer Troy was to coming back to him, to coming home.

Even with Annie living with him still, the apartment felt empty. Some of Troy's belongings that he couldn't bring with him started to gather dust, but Abed would wipe it away whenever he saw it. Perhaps then he could trick himself into thinking that he wasn't actually gone. Everyday, Abed would look to Troy's half of the bunk bed, purposefully messed up the sheets, and then made the bed once more. Perhaps then he could trick himself into thinking that he wasn't actually gone. He would leave food out for Troy, and eventually, it would be cleaned up by ~~Annie~~ Troy. Perhaps then he could trick himself into thinking that he wasn't actually gone.

That was it. Troy's not gone. He would never leave Abed, and he was a fool for thinking otherwise. Troy couldn't be gone. He stared at an empty space in the room for a few moments, closed his eyes, wished, and opened them once more.

And just like that, there was someone there. It was Troy.

"Hey, Abed." Troy grinned. "Thanks for making my bed, buddy. You didn't have to though. Was about to get it myself."

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and suggestions are welcome and appreciated! If anyone has any tips on how to better write an autistic character, let us know! I know my experiences are not universal, and my editor is not autistic. Thus, any input could increase the accuracy (lmao it took me five minutes to think of that word, went through 'validity' and even 'good-factor') of his characterization.


End file.
